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Andrea Dovizioso qualified in fifth place for the Argentina GP, third round of the 2014 MotoGP World Championship, which will take place tomorrow at the Autodromo Termas de Rio Hondo in the north of the country. His team-mate Michele Pirro, who is replacing the injured Cal Crutchlow, was unable to find a good feeling with his Ducati Team Desmosedici GP14, and could only finish nineteenth.

In the early stages of Q2 Dovizioso set a time of 1m39.545s on his second lap out, which powered him close to the top of the times in the provisional standings. After returning to the pits to fit a second soft tyre, Dovi then managed to further improve by seven-tenths of a second, ending qualifying with a time of 1m38.856s, which earned him a row 2 start position for tomorrow’s race.

Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Team #04) – 5th (1m38.856s)
“I am very happy with my position: starting from row 2 tomorrow is fine. But I’m happy above all for the good work we did today. This morning we were quick over one lap, but rather slow over race pace because we were wearing out the rear tyre in a strange way. However we managed to improve the set-up of the bike a lot, this afternoon I was able to lower my pace by almost two seconds, and so now I can get a relaxing night’s sleep! I did a really good lap in qualifying, and when you do this the feelings are always great. Managing the tyres in the race will be very complicated; when you go to a new circuit, with a dirty track surface and no rubber, there are always these problems. I am sure that tomorrow in the race, as well as speed, the difference will be made by those who can ride smoothly and not aggressively.”

Michele Pirro (Ducati Team #51) – 19th (1m41.018s)
“I am pretty disappointed because I was not able to find a good feeling with my Desmosedici GP14. I don’t exactly know why, but I struggled a lot more than expected. This is in no way the position we should be with this bike, so now me and my engineers will try and find a solution for me to run a decent race tomorrow and repay my team for all the work they’ve done in these days.”